Hey Scott...I was watching Smackdown via Hulu on my PS3, and I saw something that I find really irritating. During the little bullying promo between Vicki, DB, and Ryback, it was *painfully* obvious that Ryback was reading the few lines he had off of a cue card (or something similar) located just off camera. He was clearly not looking at DB while speaking to him, and this is not the first time it's happened on a WWE program. It is one of the reasons I stopped watching Saturday Night Live, and it seems horribly unprofessional to me. I can see why the folks on SNL would do it - though I wish they wouldn't - but wrestlers...(cough)...excuse me....SUPERSTARS now feel the need? Yeah, it may not affect the in ring product, but it really messes up my suspension of disbelief while I'm watching.
On the plus side, it makes guys like Punk and Heyman look that much better.
Am I alone on this?
No, they've been doing cue cards for YEARS now and it drives me crazy. Steve Austin never put up with that bullshit and for good reason. If guys can't cut a promo on their own, they shouldn't be cutting promos. That's what managers used to be for.
Ryback should become a Heyman Guy. He wouldn't have to talk anymore and it would give Punk someone other than Axel to wrestle until Brock comes back.
ReplyDeleteSNL uses cue cards because of how often the dialogue in a skit chances. Stuff will change from dress rehearsal to air.
ReplyDeleteI'm probably alone on this, but I don't think Ryback uses cue cards. We've seen him cut much longer promos, whether on top of the ambulance or bullying people backstage (specifically the one where Ryback forced the guy to fill his bag with water); I just think that staring off into the distance is his own "thing". Maybe he thinks it's more dramatic or something.
ReplyDeleteTotally agree. And that is why managers need to be brought back.
ReplyDeleteThreadjaccccccccccccccccccck: Tebow got cut. WWE should throw him a monster contract and see if he bites. The coverage would be insane and plus it's probably a better than 50/50 shot he makes it, dude is a freak athlete.
ReplyDeleteAnd if anyone can be the next Cena, it's him.
Yeah but Vince thinks he's a movie director (among a million other things he's not) so I'm sure he gets off on the lines being written for the guys so he can say they do everything and make it all about the WWE UNIVERSE and not about the individual's talent...same reason they're making guys use WWE trademarked names now all the time, Vince wants to control/own/command literally EVERYTHING.
ReplyDeleteA million yes votes for this. They should have had Ryback cost Punk the match against Axel last week to transfer the heat onto him. Heyman cutting promos while Ryback bullies people for him (and also screwing Axel opponents, helping him up the card, too) needs to happen.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it happens at Night of Champions.
Problem is the guy thinks he's an NFL quarterback.
ReplyDeleteAnd also he's a Jesus freak, and no matter what WWE does that they think changes their image, there's no way Tebow's gonna get hooked up with that.
Not to get all NFL on you here but I still think Tebow could be a QB, he's be an immediate upgrade in Jacksonville and probably Buffalo, Oakland or Miama, too.
Pretty sure there are some Jesus freaks in WWE already.
ReplyDeleteSteve Austin didn't NEED to put up with the bullshit cue cards, as he had the charisma needed and could think on his feet after, what, a decade of in-ring experience (although, he was a very good promo pre-Stone Cold as well).
ReplyDeleteThe business is a lot different than it was before, and instead of giving guys a chance to completely hone their skills before giving them a main event push.
Shocked Jax never gave him a chance. They can't sell tickets, so why not get probably the most popular athlete in that part of Florida? Makes me think Arab Ron Jeremy is Major League'ing them to get to Cali.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that's just what a shitty team like the Bills need, someone who can't throw and is a huge distraction.
ReplyDeleteNOPE.
ReplyDeleteDO NOT WANT.
ReplyDeleteThey actually need a miracle if they think they're going to beat the Pats this season, and Tebow has God on his side, so....
ReplyDeleteRecently JR was talking about WWE starting to recruit guys who don't make it in football so I wouldn't be surprised if they went after him.
ReplyDeleteJeff Teul is already a better QB than Tebow could ever hope to be.
ReplyDeleteAlso EJ Emmanual is hurt, Kolb is on IR for year, Leinhart is released... a QB who can't throw is better than no QB at all!
ReplyDeleteIf I was them, I'd find out whatever ESPN is going to offer him to be an analyst and match it or go a little above.
ReplyDeleteI was just about to say the bills should sign him for the first game at least. He's got to give them a better chance than the rookie and that first game is against the pats. So tebow might have some extra value.
ReplyDeleteIts easier to imagine him winning the NFL MVP than showing up on raw. Tebow would probably make a very good wrestler (giant dude/freak athlete) but I can't picture him lowering himself like that. He'll probably go be a missionary or something.
ReplyDeleteThey could offer him 50 million a year and he wouldn't do it.
ReplyDeleteyes, but unlike someone like Shawn Michaels, Tebow actually seems sincere.
ReplyDeleteThe rookie cab actually throw, and he looked FAR batter during the preseason.
ReplyDeleteI am sure he could be a pro QB too. In Canada
ReplyDeleteYeah I was gonna say, just before I read this I was listening to the Nerdist with Bill Hader where he talked about a cue card snafu where he and Melissa McCarthy were reading different cue cards because of re-writes.
ReplyDeleteWith wrestling its one thing, with one person talking and the ability to improv. This dude should give SNL a break though, it'd be damn near impossible for someone to memorize all those sketches every week and be able to hit all those marks and still play the character, and do it live with no mistakes that could throw the other person off.
Tebow's all-time record against the Pats is a stellar 0-4. All signing him would do is guarantee the Pats beat them by at least 20 more points than they usually average against Buffalo.
ReplyDeleteGive Ryback a break - he's already trying to be a wrestler when he can't really wrestle, now he's supposed to have natural charisma when he has no charisma to? What do you expect him to do? Memorize his lines? The guy has a lot of muscles. What else do you want from him?
ReplyDeleteI said this at the end of last years football season.
ReplyDeleteDo you have any proof he wants to be a director?
ReplyDeleteAnd he wants the names for copyright reasons. It's all about money.
I for one, dig the cartoon 90s Bully Ryback. I think WWE should head in a super stylized direction.
ReplyDeleteEver watch 'Beyond the Mat'? One of the first things he says (with this pedantic little shit eating grin on his face) is "we make movies". It's well known how ashamed Vince is to be a wrestling promoter, it's why he's tried again and again to to things well beyond their scope (WBF, XFL, WWE Movies...MOVIES...etc.) He wishes he was a media mogul, but all he knows how to really promote & run IS wrestling. In addition to being greedy.
ReplyDeleteWell, he already dresses like a Ninja Turtle. He could play Rocksteady or Bebop in the live action remake in fact!
ReplyDeleteBut he's a known control freak. If it pisses him off that he can't control when he sneezes it probably pisses him off when a guy makes his name in his company and then leaves.
ReplyDeleteWhenever WWE is thriving the first thing he does is try to use his wrestling company's success to springboard him into something else - WBF, XFL, theme restaurant, etc.
ReplyDeleteI don't think he's ashamed of being a wrestling promoter. He's worked and fought for years to make wrestling to be seen as a legit form of entertainment instead of carny BS. He's also a guy who does want more and is never complacent in life. That's why we are forced to endure the WBF and XFL. To say that he wishes to be a media mogul is a stretch and simply conjecture--he's building and branching out a company.
ReplyDeleteAre you seriously questioning the scope of Vince's ego? Vince MCMAHON? I definitely see the desire to make wrestling a more legitimate enterprise, but do we really need to be contrary that badly, to question one of the most irrefutably insecure egos on the planet lol.
ReplyDeleteThis is a tiny bit unrelated, but it gets a little tiresome to listen to people talk about how WWE wrestling should be and then trot out examples of things others did that never came close to matching the popularity of the WWE. There is only one thing that seems to be a certainty in wrestling--the McMahon formula works. Whether it was Vincent J selling out MSG for decades, Vincent K creating and/or spearheading two different boom periods, or the McMahon family still keeping the WWE safe and relevant today, they know what they're doing.
ReplyDeleteTo switch gears a bit, that's why I'm a little hesitant to buy into the McMahon-Helmsley Facgime 2.0 because it betrays the formula that works for the WWE audience. Plenty of people--including WWE employee Jim Ross--say that the money is in the chase. But if history has proven anything, it's that the major money is in the babyface champion overcoming the odds again and again. The only time the heel dominance worked and was a boon for business for WWE was for a brief period in 2000 (and even then the Rock held the title for 4-5 months that year).
I forget...who was dominating screen time back then, 13 years ago? Oh yeah, the same friggin people. So, I'm a little worried they'll stop using that face formula because HHH is a bit of an NWA mark AND has never not been portrayed as the coolest, smartest, or toughest person in the room while on TV. It's good TV so far, but it can get bad in a hurry.
I'll knock the company for not producing enough genuinely likeable faces lately, for taking Total Divas from something interesting to now poisoning the product, for not employing enough wrestlers in creative positions, and for some of the double standards they employ... but I won't knock them for evolving or altering the genre.
Hader is a funny example, since when he was doing Stefon, his co-writer would change a few jokes on the cue cards so Hader would often be seeing them for the first time while live on-air. That's what led to Hader to so often crack up while doing Stefon segments.
ReplyDeleteRyback gets too much shit for his promo work IMO... I think he is perfectly acceptable.
ReplyDeleteBefore Vince, was wrestling really seen as carny BS by non-rasslin' people? I feel like the 80's cartoonish/superhero product is what started to give wrestling the negative stigma/fake entertainment stuff.
ReplyDeleteFuck it, I'll say it.
ReplyDeleteThe Pack should give him a shot.
There's no way he could be a pro QB in Canada.
ReplyDeleteWhy? He sucks.
ReplyDeleteYep, they throw the ball a ton in the CFL. Let's face it, Tebow is too proud to become a FB or TE. I thought he was the virtuous face of humility?
ReplyDeleteIf the Pats can't make it work, no one will.
Yeah, but they really shouldn't be so obvious about it. I haven't watched SNL in a looooong time, but back when I did, the guys who were skilled were much harder to catch reading.
ReplyDeleteRyback looks like a Blastoise.
ReplyDeleteI don't think a heel champion was really what drove 2000 WWE to success - they had an awesome roster and guys like The Rock and Austin. People wanted to see them win the title, but they wanted to see them regardless.
ReplyDeletehe also owes a bit of somethin' somethin' to team rocket.
ReplyDeletethey would also just say absurd crap to him as he was about to head out.
ReplyDeleteWe should all apparently form a bill hader fan club.
Holy crap he DOES!
ReplyDeleteListening to Austin's podcast is showing me just how much of a lost art PRO WRESTLING is.
ReplyDeleteIs it a coincidence that the two hottest guys in the company right now came up differently than the WWE system?
They were on such a roll then they could've had as Cornette puts it, "Donkeys fuckin and chickens pluckin"
ReplyDeleteThere is also no place for them to cut their teeth because the territories are dead.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet he did what Brady can't do...beat the Giants.
ReplyDeleteLaughing during a skit pisses me off a lot worse than reading cue cards. It is fun on rare occassions (Debbie Downer), but I still hate Jimmy Fallon for it. He practically ruined the legendary cowbell skit.
ReplyDeleteExcept that Heyman actual picks guys with talent.
ReplyDeleteCompletely agree, though I am a big Jimmy Fallon fan.
ReplyDeleteAnd if Russo didn't "find the lord", we probably would have
ReplyDeleteDo you want me to pull the list of bad QB's that have a regular season win against a good team? That list is fairly long. That is what is called an outlier.
ReplyDeleteThis is probably more close to happening at any given moment than you would think.
ReplyDeleteI had to google Blastoise.
ReplyDeleteAustin's podcast entertains me more consistently than WWE shows right now.
ReplyDeleteI'm actually going to agree. I think the money in Bryan isn't stringing out his win, it's in finding ways for him to out maneuver and out think everybody to stay on top. They occasionally find guys and become obsessed with trying to replicate HBK's Wrestlemania title win, but that doesn't really work for the most part (Benoit). Bryan and Orton should trade the title back and forth until Survivor Series, then it should be about Triple H trying to find someone who can get the belt off of Bryan. I actually wouldn't even mind a scenario where Hunter runs through a couple of thugs (Claudio, Ryback, a returning Sheamus) before deciding he himself is the best person for the job, setting up a Bryan vs. Triple H match for the WWE Title at Wrestlemania where Bryan overcomes his last obstacle in the corporate structure. It also keeps Cena away from the title picture which is vital in allowing Bryan to develop as a top face who can fight his own battles. You can then resume the Bryan/Cena rivalry after Wrestlemania. Bonus points if comes after a heel turn for Cena from wrestling the Undertaker at Wrestlemania.
ReplyDeleteThey're taking a huge gamble with Aaron Rodgers' health and don't act like the guy isn't concussion prone.
ReplyDeleteAs of 2 days ago they had two back ups: BJ Coleman, a rookie that hasn't impressed and Vince Young, a vet and while he isn't that much better, he's much more reliable than an unproven rookie. Guess who they cut........
Plus who has to say Tebow has to play?
Quite possibly.
ReplyDeleteI think talent doesn't have much to do with the indies versus WWE's own homegrown talent system. For every CM Punk there's a John Cena: both talented guys who rose to the top in different ways.
HHH was never portrayed as the coolest or toughest person in the room as a heel. Smartest maybe, but his moniker is the "Cerebral Assassin". He's supposed to be resourceful and cunning.
ReplyDeleteI think it was both. The hottest the company got was when babyface Rock was chasing heel HHH.
ReplyDeleteCena spent a few years in indies before OVW so he isn't a pure example.
ReplyDeleteI'm talking guys that have been exposed to different styles, improvising, and cutting off the cuff promos instead of scripted stuff.
Based on what we've already seen from Tebow throughout his career, no, he isn't a better option than an undrafted rookie. Look at his pre-season alone, 11-30? He sucks and people need to get over it already. He has a chance to stay in the NFL at a different position, but he's not willing to swallow his pride and insists on playing QB. It's not going to ever happen.
ReplyDelete